TheBigSick
"The Little Mermaid" is the start of the Disney Renaissance. From then on, Disney makes "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", "The Lion King", "Mulan" and a lot of other animated musicals adapted from fairy tales. In terms of quality, "The Little Mermaid" is rather mediocre. It may be the worst Disney film produced during the Renaissance era. Particularly, it changes the tragic ending of Andersen's tale to a happy ending, almost completely destroying the themes and motifs delivered by Andersen.
Hermione Granger
After not watching animated Disney movies for a long time, I am now coming back to them and re-watching them. At some, I ask myself, "Now, WHY did I think I disliked this?!" while with others, I say, "Now, how could I have LIKED this?" Unfortunately, The Little Mermaid turns out to be one of the latter.For one, like some parts in Cinderella dragged with how much was focused on the mice, some parts here dragged with how they were focused on the sea animals. Also, though Ariel is gorgeous and does have a point--humans aren't necessarily bad--she is extremely disobedient and a horrible example for girls. If you want a good Disney Princess role model, go with Tiana (who is hard working) or Belle (who judges people because of who they are on the inside). Here, Ariel is told by her father told not to go to the surface, hangs her head, and heads straight back to the surface! She is a poor role model, repeatedly disobeying her father, who is only trying to protect her, and keeping one of her deepest, darkest secrets (being in love with and seeing a human) a secret from him.I'm not saying I hate Ariel or think she's terrible. She's funny, spunky, has great hair that isn't soaked when she goes to the surface, is an incredible singer, and so on. It's just that she's a bad role model for girls. Though girls watching this may not think of Ariel as a role model, they may enjoy the movie and like Ariel, then want to be like her, so they do what she does.The backgrounds are gorgeous and almost as good as they are in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They look real--earnestly, real. However, the animation somehow looks a bit too blurry, and Ariel is gorgeous but is sometimes a bobble-head, and her eyes are way, way too big.The music is excellent, and so is the plot. Ariel is an incredible singer, and the plot is exciting, the sort that, even though it's cartoon, makes you tense by watching it.But one incredible thing I did not notice about this movie until recently was what an amazing dad King Triton is. He seems like the worst--grouchy, mean, ugly, old, and destroying Ariel's stuff for no reason. However, he questions himself if he should've destroyed her things. Later on, near the climax, as Ariel starts to become one of Ursula's poor unfortunate soul slaves, he catches her just in time. He makes a decision--he takes Ariel's place, him becoming one of Ursula's slaves. Now, think about that. Ariel disobeyed him. She repeatedly went to the surface. She watched humans on a ship. She came in contact with a human and rescued one. She went to the sea witch and became a human. But even after all of that, King Triton STILL loves her and wants to save her, taking her place. In the end, I'm not completely sure about why I didn't get much out of the movie. It could've been because I was too pumped about seeing it again and expected too much. It could be because Ariel is a horrible role model or that the animation looks blurry. However, the movie still has a great classic touch to it, and King Triton still loves his daughter after all she's done wrong. So who knows? Maybe I'll re- watch it sometime soon, this time having bad expectations, and then be thrilled with how wrong I was and how amazing the movie is.
jc-osms
Credited with really starting Disney's animated Renaissance, my wife was determined to make me watch this with her over the festive holiday. How could I resist?Adapted from the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, it's excellent family entertainment, with a suitably sympathetic pair of young lovers at the heart of its story, a disagreeably bad villain in the guise of the wicked witch of the sea and a fine soundtrack of catchy songs perfectly in simpatico with the plot.Of course the under-the-sea settings with its exotic creatures give the animators plenty of scope for colour, imagination and flair and they don't let us down. I wasn't sure the story required that Ariel actually lose her voice for a significant period of time, but if it's in the original story (and I haven't checked) then fair enough, I suppose.There's nothing earth-shatteringly original in this movie which looks backward to Disney's glorious fairy-tale legacy of youthful innocence being corrupted by some evil menace going all the way back to Snow White, but modernised as here with some good jokes and today's music, it happily updates the studio's legacy and of course set the path for the great successes the studio and its PIXAR affiliate has enjoyed ever since.
